Днями президент казав, що закордонні партнери «стали краще розуміти» потреби України у відбитті агресії Росії
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Rights activists in Azerbaijan are accusing the government of manufacturing false charges to arrest critics who have been returned to the country after failing to gain asylum in Germany.
Samir Ashurov was detained on April 19 on charges of assault with a knife, just weeks after he was deported from Germany back to his native country.
Ashurov had fled to Germany in 2018 when he was a member of the opposition REAL Movement. After leaving Azerbaijan, Ashurov continued criticizing the Azerbaijani government.
He was readmitted to Azerbaijan on March 29, after the German government refused to grant him asylum.
His lawyer, Elchin Sadiqov, told VOA that Ashurov had left his house earlier this week planning to renew his passport so that he could again leave the country. Instead, he said, Ashurov was attacked in the street and had a knife planted on him.
“He said that a man approached him near a metro station in Baku, shouting and knocking him to the ground. Samir ran away and shouted, ‘Police,’ and that’s when the police officers immediately detained him,” Sadiqov said.
“They then put a knife in the right pocket of his jacket,” Sadiqov said. “He took the knife out and threw it away. Then they put it back in his left pocket. He was then taken to the 24th Police Station of the Nizami District Police Office.”
Ashurov’s lawyer said he was tortured in custody and now was on a hunger strike, protesting his arrest.
“He said that he was beaten at the police station,” said Sadiqov. “When I met him, he had bruises on his chest and groin. He said he had been on a hunger strike since April 19 to protest his arrest.”
Elshad Hajiyev, spokesperson for the Ministry of Internal Affairs, called these allegations completely unfounded.
“Samir Ashurov is charged with a specific crime, and what his lawyer says is a defense. And that’s understandable,” he said.
A targeted campaign
Government critics say authorities are using criminal charges to jail political opponents, in particular those who have spoken out while seeking asylum abroad. They say it’s part of a coordinated campaign by President Ilham Aliyev.
“I met Samir Ashurov last week after his deportation from Germany. He told me that he had been summoned to the prosecutor’s office several times, was being monitored and that preparations were being made for his arrest,” Tofiq Yaqublu, deputy chairman of the opposition Musavat Party and a senior politician of the National Council of Democratic Forces, wrote on Facebook.
Ashurov, who spoke with VOA earlier this month following his return from Germany, said he was also questioned at the airport about why he had left the country.
“I said that I was facing political persecution in Azerbaijan,” he said. “I told them that I had been arrested twice under false pretenses. I told them that I would be one of the victims of the government. Just like four political activists before me — Malik Rzayev, Mutalim Orujov, Punhan Karimli and Jafar Mirzayev were arrested.”
He also predicted that he would be detained in the future. “This regime will arrest me again on false charges,” Ashurov told VOA.
In January, Mirzayev, a member of the Germany-based DAS (Elect a Democratic Azerbaijan) group, was detained on charges of drug trafficking and sentenced to four months of pretrial detention. Mirzayev faces between five and 12 years in prison.
Karimli, a member of the Popular Front Party of Azerbaijan (PFPA); Rzayev and Orujov have also been charged with drug trafficking.
Some see coordinated campaign
Some rights activists argue that the arrests are part of a coordinated effort aimed at migrants who sought asylum in other countries.
“Political activists deported from Germany were being arrested on drug charges. Now they have switched from drugs to knives,” Afgan Mukhtarli, an investigative journalist, human rights defender and former political prisoner currently living in Germany, said in a Facebook post. “We knew Samir would be arrested. Ilham Aliyev takes revenge on migrants. In his speeches, he repeatedly targeted migrants, calling them agents.”
Zafar Ahmadov, co-founder of a human rights NGO known as “Defense Line,” told VOA that the fate of readmitted political activists continues to be a concern.
“The arrest of all five readmitted political activists is not a coincidence,” said Ahmadov, who is also a member of the Democracy for Azerbaijan (AND) movement. “As a rule, we raise the issue of readmitted human rights activists before the EU Delegation and the embassies of EU member states.”
The German Embassy in Azerbaijan on Thursday told VOA it was monitoring Ashurov’s case.
“We are monitoring such incidents. We hold regular talks with the Azerbaijani government on human rights issues,” the embassy officials said.
Pact on repatriation
The European Union and Azerbaijan in 2014 signed an agreement on the repatriation of persons residing without authorization. Since the signing of the agreement, more than 2,000 people have been returned to Azerbaijan, including 420 in 2021.
International human rights organizations, including Freedom House and Human Rights Watch, report that the government of Azerbaijan frequently arrests individuals exercising their fundamental rights on trumped-up charges.
The Azerbaijani government, on the other hand, says people are not persecuted for their political beliefs.
This story originated in VOA’s Azerbaijani Service.
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The French military has accused Russian mercenaries of creating a mass grave and falsely blaming it on the French.
The French Army says it has drone video, seen by news agencies Associated Press and Agence France-Presse, of Russian mercenaries burying bodies near Gossi, Mali, where the French army withdrew from a military base this week.
Video of what appears to be a similar location circulated Thursday on Twitter, showing a blurred image of what are alleged to be bodies buried in the sand. The accompanying Twitter message says the departing French army left that scene behind in Gossi.
Speaking to AFP and AP, the French Army said the mercenaries created the site to circulate images and blame the French army to stoke anti-French sentiment in Mali.
The drone video was reportedly captured Thursday morning, but the French army left Gossi on Tuesday. France recently said it would withdraw its troops from Mali in a operation expected to take four to six months.
A Twitter account named “Dia Diarra” posted a video Thursday, including what appears to be bodies partially buried in the sand, with the caption, “This is what the French left behind when they left the base at Gossi. These are excerpts from a video that was taken after they left! We cannot keep silent about this!”
“Dia Darra” claims to be a Malian veteran and “patriot” and posts mostly pro-Malian military and pro-Russia content. The original profile photo used for the account could also be seen on the Russian social media website VK on an account of a man believed to be located in Colombia.
After that was pointed out by several Twitter users, the profile picture was changed to a photo of Malian President Assimi Goita. The account has been active since January 2022.
Many governments have accused the Malian army of working with mercenaries from the Russian company the Wagner Group which, critics say, has close ties to the Russian government.
Mali’s government denies the allegation, saying it works only with “Russian instructors.”
In March, Human Rights Watch reported that residents of Moura, in central Mali, said that hundreds of civilians were killed by the Malian army while working with “white soldiers,” who spoke a language not familiar to them.
VOA spoke to a man who saw 12 to 15 men killed and witnessed both Malian and white soldiers in the village during the five-day operation.
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Підозрюваний «агітував своїх заступників до лояльного ставлення як до окупаційних військ, так і до РФ в цілому»
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Російська сторона обурена через військову допомогу Україні з боку Рейк’явіка
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Франциск не уточнив, чи визначена нова дата зустрічі
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The Dnipropetrovsk region of Ukraine – near war-ravaged Donetsk – has become a new target of Russian aggression. Apart from locals, over 135,000 internally displaced Ukrainians now live there. Yaroslava Movchan met with several families from eastern Ukraine who have found refuge in the city of Dnipro. Anna Rice narrates her story. VOA footage by Alex Pronski.
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U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet said Friday there is growing evidence of war crimes in Ukraine, with the majority of violations attributable to Russian forces.
The U.N. Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine has been gathering and documenting evidence of hundreds of alleged unlawful killings of civilians in Bucha, and in towns in the regions of Kyiv, Chernihiv, Kharkiv, and Sumy. All of those places were under the control of Russian armed forces in late February and early March.
Bachelet said Russian armed forces have indiscriminately shelled and bombed populated areas. Her spokeswoman, Ravina Shamdasani, said they killed civilians and wrecked hospitals, schools and other civilian infrastructure, actions that may amount to war crimes.
She said the monitoring mission verified more than 5,260 civilian casualties, including 2,345 killed and 2,919 injured. More than 92 percent of the casualties were recorded in government-controlled territory and the rest in Russian-controlled regions of Donetsk and Luhansk in eastern Ukraine.
“We know that the actual numbers are going to be much higher as the horrors inflicted in these areas of intense fighting, such as Mariupol, come to light,” Shamdasani said. “The scale of summary executions of civilians in areas previously occupied by Russian forces are also emerging. The preservation of evidence and the decent treatment of mortal remains must be ensured, as well as the psychological and other relief for victims and their relatives.”
Shamdasani said the willful killing of protected people, including summary executions, are gross violations of international human rights law and serious violations of international humanitarian law, and amount to war crimes.
The monitoring mission also documented what appears to be the use of cluster munitions by Ukrainian armed forces in the east of the country. Those weapons indiscriminately kill and maim civilians and are banned under international law.
Shamdasani said the high commissioner is calling for this senseless war to stop. Since the fighting shows no sign of abating, she said the high commissioner is appealing to the parties to respect international humanitarian and human rights laws.
“This means distinguishing between civilian and military objects,” Shamdasani said. “It means not targeting or deliberately killing civilians. It means not committing sexual violence. People, including prisoners of war, must not be tortured. Civilians, prisoners, and others hors de combat must be treated humanely.”
High Commissioner Bachelet called on the parties to the conflict to investigate all breeches of international humanitarian law, and to prosecute and hold perpetrators of crimes accountable. This is in line with their obligations under what are defined as the rules of war.
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У Міноборони Британії вважають, що наземний напад на «Азовсталь», ймовірно, призведе до значних втрат росіян
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Раніше про намір отримати вихід до Придністров’я російська сторона не заявляла
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«У нас за часи нашої історії їх було вже дуже і дуже багато. І вони їх постійно порушували», – заявив секретар РНБО
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«Ми намагатимемося доїхати до південної частини Рубіжного на автівках, бо люди чекають, щоб їх забрали. Та завезти туди їжі»
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Russian President Vladimir Putin has declared the besieged Ukrainian port city of Mariupol “liberated,” after nearly two months of fighting, even though Russian forces have not been able to penetrate the city’s massive Azovstal steel plant that remains in the hands of Ukrainian fighters and civilians.
Rather than storming the plant, Putin has instead ordered a blockade of the facility, sealing it off “so that not even a fly comes through,” a tactic observers believe will save Russian soldiers’ lives and possibly starve out those inside the plant.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian officials say evidence of mass graves outside Mariupol has emerged. Photographs from Maxar Technologies, a U.S. satellite imagery company, appear to show images of at least 200 new graves in the town of Manhush.
Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told the World Bank Thursday that his country needs as much as $7 billion a month in support and will need hundreds of billions to recover from Russia’s invasion.
U.S. President Joe Biden authorized another $800 million in U.S. military assistance to Ukraine on Thursday, declaring it was necessary to help Kyiv’s forces repel Russian fighters in the critical battles unfolding in the eastern region of the country.
“This package includes heavy artillery weapons, dozens of howitzers and 144,000 rounds of ammunition,” Biden said in a short White House speech. He said the new arms shipment was particularly aimed at helping Ukraine’s forces fight in the Donbas region, which is flatter, more open terrain than where earlier fighting had occurred to the west.
Biden said the new assistance, on top of another $800 million package announced last week, “almost” exhausts congressional authorization for U.S. military aid to Ukraine. But the president said he would soon ask Congress for even more money for Ukraine’s forces.
Biden said the United States and its Western allies remain united in their resolve to assist Ukraine in fighting back against Russian President Vladimir Putin’s eight-week invasion.
“The most important thing is holding the world together” against Russia, Biden said. “So far, so good.”
Biden vowed that Putin “will never succeed in occupying all of Ukraine. Putin has failed to achieve his grand ambitions on the battlefield. Kyiv still stands,” the president said.
New refugee aid
In other war-related actions, Biden said he was sending $500 million to Ukraine in new economic aid, streamlining a humanitarian refugee effort to allow Ukrainians escaping the ravages of war in their homeland to move more quickly to the United States if they want and banning all Russian ships from docking at U.S. ports.
Earlier Thursday, Putin ordered his forces not to storm a steel plant in the Ukrainian city of Mariupol where the last remaining Ukrainian forces have been holed up in the port on the north coast of the Sea of Azov.
In a televised meeting, Putin told Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu that Russian forces should blockade the plant “so that a fly cannot not pass through,” and that going forward with a plan to storm the site would unnecessarily risk Russian troops.
Shoigu told Putin that there were 2,000 Ukrainian troops at the Azovstal plant, but that the rest of Mariupol, a key port city, had been “liberated.”
Biden claimed, “There is no evidence Mariupol has fallen,” but weeks of Russian bombing has all but flattened much of the city.
Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk demanded Russia allow for the evacuation of civilians and wounded soldiers from the plant through a humanitarian corridor.
“There are about 1,000 civilians and 500 wounded soldiers there. They all need to be pulled out of Azovstal today,” Vereshchuk said in an online post Thursday.
Vereshchuk also said four buses were able to evacuate civilians from Mariupol on Wednesday.
More than 100,000 Ukrainians are believed to be trapped in Mariupol, where 400,000 people lived before Russia invaded the country on Feb. 24.
“The conditions there are truly horrific,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Wednesday at a diplomatic conference in Panama. He underscored that attempted humanitarian corridors to allow Mariupol residents to escape “have fallen apart very quickly.”
The fight over Mariupol is part of a broader Russian offensive in the strategically important Donbas region, where Moscow has been boosting its military presence.
“Moscow’s current objective is to broaden its control in the east and south. Ideally, they would like to grab Kharkiv and Odesa,” John Herbst, senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center and former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, told VOA. “But those are tall orders. They may have to settle for Mariupol.”
On March 25, following losses in northern Ukraine, Moscow announced a major shift in strategy and removed forces from the north, including the suburbs of the capital, Kyiv, to consolidate military gains in the Donbas and establish a land bridge to the Crimea Peninsula, which it seized in 2014.
Analysts say if Russian forces gain complete control of the Donbas, their diplomats will hold a stronger hand in peace negotiations and be in a better position to demand autonomy for the region.
“But even if (Putin) makes large gains in the east and south and accepts a settlement that gives him control of his new conquests, that does not mean that he will be satisfied,” Herbst said.
U.S. Defense Department analysts say the battle for the Donbas region, where fighting has been ongoing since Moscow’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, could last for months more.
The United States slapped new sanctions Wednesday on dozens more individuals and entities accused of evading ongoing financial penalties imposed on Moscow for its invasion of Ukraine.
“The Department of Treasury sanctions Transkapitalbank — a key Russian commercial bank that has offered services to banks globally to evade international sanctions, and more than 40 individuals and entities that are part of a Russian sanctions-evasion network led by Russian oligarch Konstantin Malofeyev,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters.
Psaki said Washington also has imposed sanctions on companies in Russia’s virtual currency mining industry and applied visa restrictions on more than 600 individuals in response to human rights abuses by Russia and Belarus.
Some information for this report came from The Associated Press and Reuters.
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Cписок учасників зустрічі ще не завершений, але відомо, що серед присутніх будуть не тільки представники країн НАТО
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«Ми зберігаємо надію. Надію на мир, надію на те, що життя переможе смерть»
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За даними Офісу генпрокурора, в Україні за час повномасштабного вторгнення Росії зафіксовано понад 7600 воєнних злочинів РФ
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A Russian tanker impounded by Greece this week and reportedly carrying Iranian oil will be released amid confusion about sanctions on its owners.
“The coast guard has been ordered by the anti-money laundering authority to release the vessel,” a Greek government official said, without providing further details.
On Tuesday, Greek authorities impounded the 115,500-deadweight tonnage Russian-flagged Pegas, with 19 Russian crew members on board, on the southern coast of the island of Evia.
They said the ship was impounded as part of EU sanctions on Russia for the invasion of Ukraine.
Earlier this month, the EU banned Russian-flagged vessels from its ports, with some exemptions, as it adopted new sanctions against Russia for what the Kremlin describes as a “special military operation.”
The Pegas tanker was also among five vessels sanctioned by the United States on Feb. 22, 2022 — two days before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — as part of broader sanctions against Promsvyazbank, a bank Washington described as critical to Russia’s defense sector.
Promsvyazbank said it and its unit PSB Lizing were not the owners of the tanker as it was bought back by its owner in April 2021.
Promsvyazbank did not name the new owner. PSB Lizing said the owner was TransMorFlot. TransMorFlot was not available for comment.
Greek sources close to the matter said that following checks there were no legal grounds to continue impounding the Pegas as the ship had recently changed ownership and its new owner was not on an EU sanctions list.
Iranian oil
On Tuesday, U.S. State Department welcomed Greece’s efforts to implement the sanctions “initiated in response to Russia’s brutal, unprovoked invasion of Ukraine” and said it was aware of reports that the tanker was loaded with Iranian crude oil.
Eikon tanker tracking shows the Pegas has been floating around the Mediterranean since September 2021 after loading in the Gulf in August.
Three industry sources said it had Iranian oil on board but struggled to sell it to a customer in Europe, which alongside the United States has a ban on Iranian oil.
U.S. advocacy group United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI), which monitors Iran-related tanker traffic, also said the Pegas loaded around 700,000 barrels of crude oil from Iran’s Sirri Island on Aug. 19, 2021.
Prior to this load, the Pegas transported over 3 million barrels of Iranian oil in 2021, with over 2.6 million of those barrels ending up in China, according to UANI analysis.
A Greek coast guard official confirmed it had received the decision made by the anti-money laundering unit, an independent authority, but said the order had not yet been officially served to Pegas.
The Pegas, which was renamed Lana in March, had earlier reported an engine problem. It was headed to the southern Peloponnese peninsula to offload its cargo onto another tanker but rough seas forced it to moor just off Karystos where it was seized, according to the Athens News Agency.
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Onstage, they dance through hoops and perform acrobatics with smiles on their faces. Off it, they hold anguished phone calls with family back in Ukraine.
Dancers Anna and Olga have found a sense of calm performing in a circus near New York, but they are still living the war they fled thousands of miles away.
“I spent a month without a full night’s sleep. We couldn’t go out to buy food — we were stressed and shaken all the time. It was scary,” recalls Anna Starykh, who left Ukraine after Russia’s invasion in February.
Now the 21-year-old is performing with the Flip Circus in the New York City suburb of Yonkers, where she can sleep without being woken by explosions.
More than 4,500 miles away from Kyiv, in a parking lot near the banks of the Hudson River, Starykh and her friends prepare to perform with colleagues from across Europe and South America.
The stage has become their sanctuary.
“Work really helps (us) to calm down and stay positive,” she tells AFP.
Their concern for their family members back home is palpable, though.
“I don’t know in which situation they will be next day, next week, next month. I cry about this,” says 22-year-old Olga Rezekina, who also fled Ukraine after the invasion began and whose parents and brother live in Odesa.
Rezekina and Starykh arrived in the United States with 20-year-old Anastasiia Savych, a Flip Circus veteran who had returned to Ukraine with other circus members to renew her visa when Russian tanks crossed the border Feb. 24.
All are graduates of the Bingo Circus Theater, a circus academy in Ukraine. Rezekina and Starykh joined Flip to replace two of Savych’s male colleagues, who were mobilized to fight and stayed in Ukraine.
On the day of the invasion, Savych left Kyiv for Poland on the train.
“I never saw the capital so empty. No cars, no people outside. Everything was closed. It was like in a horror movie,” she tells AFP.
Two other Ukrainian dancers in their troupe fled via Romania and joined up with them in America on March 10.
‘Leave problems backstage’
They are among more than 5 million people who have left Ukraine since the invasion, according to United Nations estimates.
“When I just arrived here, I felt guilty,” says Savych, whose mother convinced her that she would not be able help the family by staying in Ukraine.
Now she waits to hear that the war is over and that “we won,” Savych says.
“I’m 20 years old and want stay young and not speak about the war,” she tells AFP.
The three friends all have similar but different dreams for the future.
“Live and be safe,” says Starykh, when asked hers. “Traveling around the world,” says Rezekina, while Savych hopes to live permanently in the U.S.
Alexa Vazquez, who helps run Flip — the circus was founded by her family in Mexico more than 50 years ago — says it was difficult getting the women out of Ukraine with airports closed.
“To have these girls here with right now safe means a world to us, especially to me, because they are friends, they are family. We can support them in any way possible,” she tells AFP.
The Ukrainians appear several times in the show, in which animals do not perform.
“People come and they want to look at a good show. You can leave your problems backstage,” concludes Rezekina.
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Пожежа поширилася на тисячу квадратних метрів
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За оцінкою уряду, нові обмеження торкнуться товарів на понад 1 мільярд фунтів стерлінгів
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Онуфрій пропонує влаштувати ходу від міста Оріхів Запорізької області до заводу «Азовсталь» у Маріуполі. Це понад 160 км
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Для відновлення після цієї війни Україна буде потребувати ще сотень мільярдів доларів, каже президент
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According to papers filed with U.S. securities regulators, billionaire Elon Musk appears ready to continue his bid to take over Twitter, this time via a tender offer that would bypass the company’s board and offer to buy stock directly from shareholders.
Twitter’s board of directors last week voted unanimously to use a tactic called a “poison pill” to fend off Musk’s attempt to acquire the company.
The papers show Musk, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, has secured $46.5 billion in financing for the offer of $54.20 per share.
Twitter “is committed to conducting a careful, comprehensive and deliberate review to determine the course of action that it believes is in the best interest of the Company and all Twitter stockholders,” the company said in a statement Thursday.
The news only shows Musk could go forward with a tender offer, but apparently no decision has been made.
In addition to Musk, Morgan Stanley, Barclays, Bank of America, Societie Generale, Mizuho Bank, BNP Paribas and MUFG could be involved in the deal.
They have reportedly agreed to finance $25.5 billion of the deal while Musk could cover the rest.
Twitter stock was trading flat on the development.
Under the poison pill plan, all Twitter shareholders except Musk could buy more shares at a discount. This would dilute the world’s richest person’s stake in the company and prevent him from recruiting a majority of shareholders supporting his move.
If Musk’s ownership in Twitter grows to 15% or more, the poison pill would go into effect.
Last week, Musk, who was revealed as the company’s largest individual shareholder, with 9.2% of the shares, later offered more than $43 billion, or $54.20 per share, to purchase the entire company.
Musk’s offer would provide a substantial premium over Twitter’s current stock price.
When Musk made his offer, he lamented the company’s stance on free speech.
“I believe free speech is a societal imperative for a functioning democracy,” Musk said in the filing. “I now realize the company will neither thrive nor serve this societal imperative in its current form.”
Some information in this report comes from The Associated Press.
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